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PERIOD GUIDE · Cyprus

The Ceramic Neolithic in Cyprus: a documented gap

The chronological table of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus dates the period to 5500-3900 BCE. The site has no item yet dated explicitly to the period, and this page sets out what was checked and what is missing.

5500-3900 BCE

Move through the periods

Its place in the Cyprus scheme

The whole scheme with this period marked; the periods before and after are its neighbours in the row. Boundaries follow the sources and are not to scale.

All periods and subdivisions
  1. The Neolithic in Cyprus10,000-3,900 BCE
  2. The Chalcolithic in Cyprus3,900-2,500 BCE
  3. The Bronze Age in Cyprus2,500-1,050 BCE
  4. Cyprus from the Geometric to the Classical period1,050-312 BCE
  5. The Hellenistic period in Cyprus312-58 BCE
  6. The Roman period in Cyprus58 BCE - 395 CE
  7. Early Christian and Byzantine Cyprus395-1,191 CE
  8. Frankish and Venetian Cyprus1,191-1,571 CE

The frame

The chronological table of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus dates the Ceramic Neolithic to 5500-3900 BCE, for the whole island; as for the other periods of Cyprus on this site, this is the frame the site adopts. The Department of Antiquities pages cited here could not be opened for checking on 24 October 2026; the details from them follow notes taken from those pages at an earlier stage and were not re-checked. The Met's timeline, read on 24 October 2026, has no such separate phase: it gives Cyprus a single "Neolithic period", about 8500-3900 BCE, whose end is the same as the end of the period in the table. Sources 1, 2.

Boundaries and overlaps

The start of the period at 5500 BCE falls within the 6th millennium, in which the same table still places the Aceramic Neolithic, so the two phases overlap. The Department's page on Kalavasos describes an abandonment followed by the appearance of the Ceramic Neolithic: it gives a sequence of phases, not a date. At its end, in 3900 BCE, the period meets the start of the Chalcolithic in the same table. Sources 1, 3.

On this site

No page on the site yet documents a site with a phase dated explicitly to the Ceramic Neolithic. Checked for this page: the Department of Antiquities pages on Khirokitia, Kalavasos and Kourion and its chronological table, which contain only general statements about the period. The UNESCO page on Khirokitia was read on 24 October 2026: its two ranges, the 7th to the 4th and the 7th to the 5th millennium BC, reach into these years, but the page mentions no ceramic phase, so the Khirokitia article stays in the Aceramic Neolithic. Missing: a site page or an excavation report with an explicit date in the period. Sources 4, 3, 5, 1, 6.

Source

Sources and further reading

The research and references behind this page. Rights to external content remain with their owners.

  1. 1 Chronological table of the history of Cyprus (Department of Antiquities, Cyprus)

    Department of Antiquities, Cyprus · Not opened for checking

  2. 2 The Eastern Mediterranean and Syria, 8000-2000 B.C.

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art · 2000 · Checked

  3. 3 Kalavasos, site page of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus

    Department of Antiquities, Cyprus · Not opened for checking

  4. 4 Choirokoitia (Khirokitia), site page of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus

    Department of Antiquities, Cyprus · Not opened for checking

  5. 5 Kourion, site page of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus

    Department of Antiquities, Cyprus · Not opened for checking

  6. 6 Choirokoitia - UNESCO World Heritage Centre

    UNESCO World Heritage Centre · Checked

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